Robot 6

Comics A.M. | Comix Experience robbed; Wertham’s distortions

Crime | Comix Experience in San Francisco was robbed at gunpoint Friday afternoon, with two young men demanding that owner Brian Hibbs empty the cash register containing about $75 and turn over an iPhone used for credit card transactions. A Lower Haight neighborhood blog interviewed Hibbs about the incident: “Divis [Divisadero Street] is generally pretty safe these days, so I was a LITTLE shocked at, y’know, a ‘brazen daylight armed robbery’ of it — but I am kind of more shocked that anyone thought that a comic book store was a high value target about an hour after they opened. Hell, life is like 85% credit cards these days, so even at our fattest there’s seldom enough to risk that kind of jail time, in my opinion …” [Haighteration]

History | Scholar Carol Tilley gives a first-person account of her research on Fredric Wertham, the super-villain of comics history, and how looking through his papers led her to an unexpected conclusion: His published works misrepresented what his research subjects had told him: “For many hard-to-articulate reasons, I didn’t want to write the scholarly paper on Wertham and the problems I found in his evidence, but not to write it seemed a disservice to the young people whose words and experiences Wertham distorted to help make his case against comics.” [Boing Boing]

From “Earth 2″ #9

Comics | Writer James Robinson discusses the introduction of a new Doctor Fate in this week’s Earth 2 #9: “It’s very magic and very different from the feel of the first eight issues, but that’s where I want Earth 2 to be: a book that you never quite know where it’s going to go or what kind of villains or threats the heroes will be facing in the future.” [USA Today]

Creators | Glee writer Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa talks about the new Archie/Glee crossover story that begins in Archie Comics #641, in comics shops this week: “How perfectly these worlds mesh and how funny the comparisons are between the characters.” The idea for the comic was hatched after Aguirre-Sacasa and Archie Co-CEO Jon Goldwater met at New York Comic Con in 2011. [CBS News]

Comics | Dr. Michael Green talks about the graphic narrative he developed, with artist Ray Reick, to inform other doctors about how to avoid a medical mistake. The comic is a supplement to this week’s issue of Annals of Internal Medicine. [Medscape]

Exhibits | Comics artist Mark Ellerby critiques the show of Roy Lichtenstein’s work at the Tate, noting that it is basically lifted from the work of artists like Jack Kirby who were doing work for hire and sometimes didn’t even get credit for their work: “Lichtenstein’s work is now worth millions. How depressing that it’s the result of plunder.” [The Guardian]

News From Our Partners

Comments

7 Comments

Orphan

Hey it’s not like these two kids could actually read comics.Just goes to show Wertham was right.Just hanging around comics makes you commit crimes.And we got this story from some local blog not a legit news source?

Paul Garcia

Dave

Dumb thought: I wonder if “Comic Book Men” had anything to do with inspiring the robbers. Seems like on that show, every dimwit that brings in some useless 80s ephemera gets hundreds of dollars in cash for it.

Orphan

You are right on the money here ,Dave.One of my LCS’s has complained of people bringing in boxes of what amounts to junk since the series has premiered thinking they have a treasure trove.The show and others like it Pawn Shop,Pickers/Etc.as well as recent auction house activity have brought back hordes of speculators and carpetbaggers who don’t care or have a clue as to what comics are all about but expect to profit big time.

“Lichtenstein’s work is now worth millions. How depressing that it’s the result of plunder.”

But I always thought that was the point — the very idea that an audience would consider those pieces garbage if they were printed on newsprint but suddenly think they’re worth millions when they’re copied to canvas and put in a frame is what the pieces are all about. Lichtenstein may have been a hack, but I really don’t think he’s the villain here.

I believe it was Spiegelman who said “Roy Lichtenstein did no more or less for comics than Andy Warhol did for soup.”